Join us on Twitter and IRC (#ludumdare on Afternet.org) for the Theme Announcement!

Thanks everyone for coming out! For the next 3 weeks, we’ll be Playing and Rating the games you created.You NEED ratings to get a score at the end. Play and Rate games to help others find your game.We’ll be announcing Ludum Dare 36’s August date alongside the results.

New Server: Welcome to the New (less expensive) Server! Find any problems? Report them here.

MEMEX

MEMEX is an ambient mystery puzzle game where you steal
bits and pieces of someone's memory. You play as the thief,
pushing your way through someone's mind in an attempt to
take away pieces of treasured memories.

But why are you doing this? Who are "you" supposed to be?

Cake&Code welcomes you to try your hand at being the villain
for once, and watch our little story unfold.
Keep in mind, you don't have to collect all the pieces to move on,
but it won't be without consequence.

Comments

Pretty good. I like how the story was told, and the art is lovely. The puzzle is interesting, and maybe too easy, which is not a bad thing I think. There was only one bug I found, that sometimes I moved 2 squares when I pressed a direction

The graphics are gorgeous. I love the extremely linear, iconic feel, and how it's carried through all the assets. Still not crazy about the music, and didn't feel like I was really the villain. Hardness just about right where you want for LD (which is to say, casual/easy.) Really dug the story though.

Best game I've played yet! The graphics for this are exquisite, and the little details in the way your character moves and the interface responds take up another notch.

There are two things I noticed that seemed a little off:

On the second stage, the first time memories collapse, you can get stuck on your first move. It might be better to position it so that you notice that blocks collapse but you can't get stuck right away.

On the last few (two?) levels, the character started moving a lot more quickly, and it made the game feel harder but not in a fair way - it was easy to accidentally push a block too far. Not sure if that was just my machine, though.

This is beautiful. The artwork is fantastic, and the sound works very well together with it. At first I didn't realize that you don't have to push all blocks to their destinations, but I don't think I missed anything because of that. Rather the contrary. Amazing job!

Very nice, consistent visual and aural style with a good yet disturbing story. Will try again to see what happens if I don't get the full memories. Puzzles are no challenge but I see them more as vehicles to drive the game forward then as obstacles in this game.

Beautiful. Both the art and story. It kinda reminds me a of a creepy pasta, but one of the well written ones. The puzzles were a little too easy though, I flew through all the levels with little challenge.

As always, your games are gorgeously beautiful! I loved the fonts, the level designs, the sounds.

The puzzle element is also nice. The idea of having to "open up" paths by choosing which block to collapse was quite novel.

As for the story, I must confess that I didn't quite follow what happened by the end of it. So who is the player controlling actually? Is it the "dark eyed girl" wiping out the narrator's memories? Or what? The story was a bit vague, and I was lost in the end.

I had yo play this game 4 times to try and make my mind about everything... xD
It's really nice being told the history according to how many fragments you gather... but I missed it changing the ending.
Also, as I understood the game (you being the black-eyed girl, since the player's graphics flashes over her graphic, in the end) it doesn't make sense to me the guy dreaming of everything when you steal the memories... shouldn't it be the other way around? >_<
I'm not sure I understood everything... xD
Nonetheless, awesome game!

So, lemme get this straight: The dark-eyed girl was in a fight with the blond girl over the guy. So, the dark-eyed girl killed the blond girl, and then stole the guy's memories and made the whole thing like a dream to him, allowing him to think that the dark-eyed girl was the one he'd loved all along.

How incredibly dark. Beautiful, just beautiful.

Those path clearing puzzles were also very original, I've never seen anything like that. Same with the story being the incentive for a player to fully beat the level.

I'm trying to make it a habit to give my criticisms in these comments, but I can't think of anything. Perhaps it could use an "undo move" key?

Thanks for all the comments everyone! The controls being fiddly was a trade off we made for long-range movement with a single key press, it might not have been the best decision and we'll try and make the controls are more solid for next time! The feedback is always appreciated :D

@23: We tried our best with the level design but yeah that second level isn't the best of teachers, we'll try to keep that in mind for the future. As for the speed up, sorry to hear about that! I hope it didn't interfere too badly. Thanks again!~

@matthias_zarzecki: Sorry about that! We definitely weren't trying to make levels that punish players. Next time we'll try to make the levels more informative rather than simply evil :)

@zenmumbler: Puzzles were definitely just a vehicle to let the narrative unfold. Thanks!

@caranha: We're sorry about the story not being clear enough! Puzzlem00n has an excellent synopsis in his comment that we hope will clear things up :D

@GFM: The memories are in first person because they are his memories and you in his mind when experiencing them, but yes you are right about the player being the dark-haired girl. Sorry it wasn't more clear! It was a very experimental execution for both of us. We'll definitely learn from all of it. Thanks! :)

@Puzzlem00n: D'awww, you're too kind. We're so glad you enjoy it so much and you totally nailed the story! Thank you <3

Very nicely crafted puzzler. Graphics are fantastic, and the music is gorgeous.
The story that ties it all together is short and the ending (intentionally?) vague but it was good enough to get me through to the end. Well done.

Artistically fantastic. The music was a little irritating unfortunately, and it got really frustrating how often you would move 2 squares instead of one, and fail near the end of a puzzle and have to do it over. This is why these type of games generally have an undo last action button. Sadly I think it was a rather uninspired genre to choose as well as block pushers are pretty dull, and adding a narrative doesn't really change the gameplay.
The only thing that kept me going till the end was the story, which was damn creepy. Not really sure what it all means, or how you were a villain, but yeah.

Great mood! At first I didn't understand that you get more of the story the better you finish the level, and I thought the level design was just bad as you could finish a level without pushing all the blocks to their targets. I still think that the puzzles should have been a little bit harder to complete. The connection to the theme is weak in my opinion, even though I understand that it can be explained in the story. The story is intriguing by the way, possibly owing to the music and art direction.

I love how story and puzzles flow in and out of another.
Music is great. The choice of words creates a special mood.
Great work.. for personal taste.. I would have liked the puzzles to be harder towards the end. :)

Real artsy, but you also managed to tie some gameplay into it, which has some gimmicks instead of being just a repackaged Sokoban. I love that the way you complete levels affects how you experience the story.

I love the graphical style. To be honest the story driven by puzzle didn't do it for me, I just lost interest. I think mainly because they felt a little too disconnected. If it was grounded just a little more I think it would of tipped the scale of engagement for me. That said, it is a very well executed game overall!

immense, best game of the jam, such a fully realised idea in such a short space of time. excellent work.

You must sign in to comment.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to place in the final results, you NEED votes. The easiest way to get votes is by rating other games. Judging lasts for 3 weeks following the end of Ludum Dare. For best effect, rate 20 games as soon as possible. Rating more games is encouraged.

MORE TIPS AND DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE

REMEMBER: The “Theme” category is only for the main theme (You are the Villain). Don’t penalize for not using Goats.

TEAMS: Teams entering the Jam should pick a single representative to submit your game, or create a team specific account you can share. We currently do not support Team Voting, but sharing an account and together playing and rating games is acceptable.

NOT LOGGED IN?: If you get a message about not being logged in, even though you are, it’s because your web browser cached the non-logged in page. You can fix this by either refreshing your cache or clearing your cache. CTRL+F5 in many browsers. Chrome is a bit more work. Press F12 to enable Developer Mode, then you can right click on the refresh button and select “Empty Cache and Hard Reload”. This option is unavailable if you are not in Developer Mode.

We’ve identified the problem, and should have the page caching bugs fixed for next Ludum Dare.

PORTS: Ports to other platforms can be done after the deadline. That said, the sooner you finish your port, the sooner people can play your game, improving your chances of placing in the final results. For best results, provide a Web version of your game, or a Windows version with no dependencies. Also be sure to rate about 20 games to improve your visibility.

MY GAME DOESN’T SHOW UP: If you can’t find your game, it’s usually because the URL to your downloads are missing ‘http://‘. Fix your URLs (http://mysite.com/mygame.zip) and you will show up.

MY GAME CRASHES, IS UNBEATABLE, OR I MADE A TYPO: We allow you to fix crash or win condition bugs after the deadline (in a sense, like “porting” to support more players). We also allow “typo” bugs. I.e. A true that should have been a false, a word that should have been a different word, very tiny changes that you would have caught if you had more sleep. We leave this open to interpretation, but generally speaking your game should be identical to the game you submitted. No new features, just things you messed up last minute. Typos.